Communication Breakdown – A Threat to Large Organizations

The purpose of organizational departments is to create specialized skills and processes to accomplish certain critical functions and to build efficiencies and expertise in accomplishing them. An organization’s appropriate implementation of departmental responsibilities creates core competencies that do not exist when individual employees seek to become a “Jack of all Trades.” Productive departments further help to quickly develop new employee skills and to develop and refine good processes and procedures.

One potential pitfall of a departmental structure is that at times this can lead to interdepartmental alienation, putting an organization at risk. When communication breaks down between departments, critical reconciliations and interdepartmental processes can be heavily affected. This can easily happen in a large organization when a department loses vision of their role in the organization as a whole. Departments need to maintain a close familiarity with their respective purpose and value-add to their fellow departments.

Often, this disconnect between a departmental alienation and organizational teamwork can be repaired with training and vision-casting from senior management. At times, there can be a disconnect between what the department produces and what other departments need in order to function efficiently. We regularly see where reconciliations between departments are hampered due to lack of ability to reconcile between departments. Departments need to recognize this flaw and take the appropriate steps to increase communication between departments.

Fraud can creep into an organization where communication between departments is poor. Fraudsters can and do use organizational communication breakdowns to their advantage, often at great cost to organizations.

If you need assistance increasing the communication or reporting between departments, please email me at dhammarberg@macpas.com.

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